To die for
Being a trade union organiser in bottling plants used by Coca-Cola in Colombia is a dangerous business - they are prime targets for death squads. Can Coke be held responsible? Mark Thomas follows the trail from Bogotá to New York
The Guardian, Saturday September 20 2008
~snip~
This building is where we meet two men, Giraldo and Manco. They arrive on different days and give their testimonies separately, but they tell the same story. Campaign posters in the room where we talk demand boycotts and justice; the images are of handguns painted in the company colours of red and white. The names and pictures of dead trade unionists are everywhere. Giraldo and Manco knew these men, they were friends and relatives. Now they speak of how they died.
Oscar Alberto Giraldo Arango is 42, but he carries a few more years on his shoulders. Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists - since 1986, 2,500 of them have been killed. "To be a trade unionist in Colombia is to walk with a gravestone on your back," the two men told me the first time we met - and they looked as weary as if they had physically borne their stone.
Giraldo was raised in Carepa, Urabá , in the north-west of the Colombian countryside near the Panama border. He started work bottling Coca-Cola in 1984, at the Bebidas y Alimentos de Urabá (Drinks & Foods of Urabá) bottling plant. When he told his friends, they congratulated him on landing such a good job. And it was, too. The union had done well for the men, securing bonuses, overtime and health benefits. But this was not to last. Graffiti announced the paramilitaries' arrival in Carepa in 1994: "We are here!" Shortly after the graffiti appeared, so did the bodies.
The first Coca-Cola worker and trade unionist in Carepa to be assassinated was José Eleazar Manco, in April 1994. The second was killed days later on April 20. He was Giraldo's brother, Enrique. In the mornings, Enrique travelled to work on the back of a friend's motorbike. Three men emerged from the side of the road and aimed guns at the bike, forcing it to stop. Enrique was dragged off into the bushes.
More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/20/colombia.cocacola?gusrc=rss&feed=business